Chapter 165 Qingzhang and Reclamation

Although traditionally, salt revenue has been the head of the feudal dynasty, but for Fengtian, which is vast and sparsely populated, rich in resources and urgently needs to carry out various development such as agriculture and processing industries, although the salt revenue may be more important in these two years, the existing salt revenue of more than one million silver is unlikely to become Zhao Dongyun's future financial pillar.

Zhao Dongyun must find a way to make more money, and for Zhao Dongyun, who is determined to expand his army and establish a huge base, how much fiscal revenue does Fengtian need to achieve every year?

If you want to maintain the status quo, that is, to support the two mixed associations and pay 40,000 taels of silver per month for the third town. Although Zhao Dongyun's third town is known as the direct line of Beiyang, the main military expenses are paid by the household department, but during the stationing in Fengtian, Fengtian paid part of the defense expenses, plus Zhao Dongyun additional equipment There are many weapons, and the cavalry is also super-staffed, so there are a lot of extra military expenses.

In addition, although the patrol police in Fengtian can't expect them to fight, and the cost is far less than that of the regular army, they also need to spend money to support them.

Only the funds needed to maintain the existing troops, Zhao Dongyun has to take out about 220,000 taels of silver every month, and about 2.5 million yuan a year.

In addition to military expenditure, such a large Fengtian still needs a lot of other funds. For example, according to the current scale of education reform, not to mention the future, but this year we have to invest at least 300,000 taels of silver in education funds, and there are also a large number of administrative funds, which also needs about 2 million taels of silver per year. Zi.

As for other messy things, anyway, according to Fengtian's existing annual income of more than 2 million taels of silver is far from enough, even if it doubles to 4 million taels of silver, it is not enough.

According to Zhao Dongyun's prediction, more than 6 million taels of silver will be invested every year just to maintain the existing reforms. If we want to expand the two mixed associations into two towns, and then restore the needs of people's livelihood in Liaodong and other areas after the end of the Russo-Japanese War, and support industry and commerce, even 10 million taels of silver will not be enough next year!

In order to achieve an annual income of 10 million taels, this is really not enough to open your mouth, nor does it mean that it can only rely on tax rectification or salt rectification, and you have to open up additional financial resources.

Zhao Dongyun has prepared a lot of solutions for this. Not to mention industry and commerce, Zhao Dongyun also has high expectations for agriculture. He hopes to further develop agriculture and then drive Fengtian's agricultural products processing industry, and then expand and strengthen Fengtian's unique soybean industry, grain industry and textile industry.

In this series of links, expanding the output of agricultural products is the basis of a series of agricultural product processing industries in Northeast China, because only when the output of these agricultural products is increased can various agricultural product processing industries in Fengtian flourish.

And no matter how low the technical content of these agricultural products processing industries are, they will be charged much more tax than district land taxes.

That is to say, Zhao Dongyun does not expect much tax from agriculture. He only needs to maintain a normal level. The tax he expects to come from the agricultural processing industry, such as Fengtian's traditional economic pillars: oil pressing, raw silk, brewing, etc.

In addition, the development of agriculture is also related to key issues such as Zhao Dongyun attracting immigrants and increasing Fengtian's overall grain production, so Zhao Dongyun naturally dares not relax agricultural problems.

"Mr. Chen, how is your reclamation office recently?" After listening to the report of Zhou Ziqi of the General Administration of Salt Affairs, Zhao Dongyun soon turned his eyes to Chen Zhenxian, General Office of the General Administration of Agriculture and Forestry.

At the beginning of the General Administration of Agriculture and Forestry, Zhao Dongyun was only an agricultural reclamation bureau, but later set up a forestry bureau in order to develop forestry resources, and then planned to set up an animal husbandry bureau in order to develop animal husbandry. However, there were too many institutions in this way, which did not meet Zhao Dongyun's original intention to streamline the administrative agency, so he simply put the above The three institutions merged, with Chen Zhenxian as the general office, with an agricultural reclamation office, a forestry office, a livestock office and a fishery office.

So although the name of the General Administration of Agriculture and Forestry doesn't sound as good as that of the General Administration of Finance and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, it is a veritable heavyweight department under Zhao Dongyun, which is in charge of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fisheries.

Chen Zhenxian, like several other international students, did not wear traditional horse coats or official robes, but suits. Most of the people present wore horse coats or government officials, while Zhao Dongyun, who came from military backgrounds, were basically in military uniforms. International students were basically in suits, a small meeting. Four completely different costumes can be seen in it, which is also a feature of the times at the end of the Qing Dynasty.

Chen Zhenxian was well prepared for today's meeting. Zhao Dongyun will hold a plenary meeting to discuss solving financial problems, and he will listen to the returns of various departments before discussing and solving problems, so Chen Zhenxian is also prepared in advance.

Immediately stood up, and then took out the information in his hand and distributed it to everyone here: "At present, the agricultural development in our province is relatively smooth. The existing number of cultivated fields is relatively large, but there are a large number of private fields that have been hidden and unreported. In addition, there are some barren fields, pastures, paddocks, etc. Recently, our agriculture and forestry The work of the General Administration focuses on the investigation of private fields and the reclamation of official fields and pastures.

Chen Zhenxian said this, and the corners of his mouth raised slightly: "Since June, our bureau has issued a series of measures such as private reporting, and successively investigated 1.3 million mu of private land, ranging from 1.5 million yuan to 5 yuan per mu according to the excellent land price. At present, our bureau has collected 1.5 million taels of silver for this item alone. "

The above-mentioned private pleading refers to the land obtained by private individuals in the officially owned 'no lesson' official fields, wilderness, ownerless wilderness and other places. As long as the land reclamation people register with the government and pay a one or two pieces of silver per mu, then this mu of land will be your permanent private property in the future.

In fact, this move is to sell the barren official land and ownerless land directly, but the price is much lower than the price of normal farmland.

Other people present, such as Zhou Ziqi of the General Office of Salt Affairs and Zhao Dongping of the State Administration of Finance, although they knew that the General Administration of Agriculture and Forestry had made a lot of money in recent months, they did not expect more than 1.5 million yuan, and more importantly, Chen Zhenxian's meaning seemed to be later.

Sure enough, after Chen Zhen first opened his mouth and got 1.5 million taels of silver, he continued, "In addition, our bureau has reclamated Dalinghe Ranch, Fengtian paddock and other official land. It is expected that three million mu of official land will be reclaimed within the year, and it is expected that we can get about one million taels of silver!"

This so-called reclamation is not to give the land casually. No matter how cheap the land is, the official needs to collect money, but the land price is very cheap. The price of three million mu is only about one million taels, and the average price is no more than three cents of silver. The reason why the land sold by "reclaiming" and "reclaiming" is so cheap is mainly to attract refugees from Zhili, Shandong, Henan and other places.

Of course, in order to prevent those rich people from buying tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of mu of land, those land generally have a variety of political conditions. They are purchased according to Dingkou restrictions, and if you buy it, you must open up wasteland. If you don't open up wasteland, the land will be officially recovered.

On the one hand, the reason for doing this is to prevent land annexation, and on the other hand, it is to increase the population of the northeast. After all, people come to Dongguan not to be a small farmer for others, but to own their own land.

Chen Zhenxian opened his mouth twice in a row, more than 1 million taels of silver at a time, and 2.5 million taels of silver twice, which made everyone else present stunned...

Chen Zhenxian is still talking about his report, but everyone is not very interested in listening! Only Zhao Dongyun listened with relish. After talking about agriculture, Chen Zhenxian talked about forestry and fisheries, but these two aspects are ordinary. It is difficult to rely on them to create a lot of money in a short period of time, while animal husbandry is mainly concentrated in the area near Mongolia.

The jurisdiction of contemporary Fengtian is larger than that of later Liaoning. In addition to Liaoning, it also has jurisdiction over part of Mongolia and part of Jilin, so there are more herdsmen near Mongolia, and there are also more animal husbandry. Well, to say, the cavalry of Meng Enyuan's newly established 'Fengtian Third Cavalry Battalion' is Recruited in this area.

Zhao Dongyun doesn't care too much about how much money Chen Zhenxian got, because the money to sell the land is a hammer, and it will be gone after receiving it this time. That is to say, Chen Zhenxian's more than two million taels of silver is a one-time income. Zhao Dongyun still attaches importance to the sustainable development of agriculture, which will drive the increase of agricultural taxes and grain production, and then drive the agricultural product processing industry.

After all, Zhao Dongyun was in the late Qing Dynasty rather than in later generations. In this era, he did not have the ability to sell land to sky-high prices to maintain the operation of the whole financial system, because although he also had official fields in his hands these days, there was more land in his private hands. It is impossible for the state-owned land to be controlled by the state, and then it could Like squeezing toothpaste, it sells a little a year, creating artificial supply and demand, and then raising high prices.

Therefore, selling land, especially the money obtained from the sale of those official wasteland, is not Zhao Dongyun's main source of income in the future. If possible, he is even willing to distribute these lands to those immigrants free of charge. Why? Because immigrants will pay taxes every year after reclamation, Zhao Dongyun looks forward to those land taxes compared with the one-time purchase of land money.

After the General Administration of Agriculture and Forestry finished speaking, Zhao Dongyun turned his eyes to Zhao E: "Brother Zhao, what is the current situation in the industrial zone? Can the income and expenditure be stable?

Immediately, Zhao E, the general office of Huludao Industrial Zone, stood up and reported!